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Professor John Doyle and colleagues are among only nineteen groups in the United States to receive National Science Foundation (NSF) funding to conduct innovative research focused on neural and cognitive systems. They aim is to integrate the capabilities of deep learning networks into a biologically inspired architecture for sensorimotor control that can be used to design more robust platforms for complex engineered systems. [NSF release]

Caltech’s smart grid team led by Professors John Doyle, Steven Low, and Adam Wierman along with their collaborators have been awarded $3.9 million for an Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) Network Optimized Distributed Energy System (NODES) project entitled "Real-time Optimization and Control of Next-Generation Distribution Infrastructure." NODES is ARPA-E’s new program focused on enabling more than 50% usage of renewable power on the grid. The Caltech team will develop a comprehensive distribution network management framework that unifies real-time voltage and frequency control at the home/distributed energy resource controllers’ level with network-wide energy management at the utility/aggregator level. [Learn more]

By combining heart rate data from real athletes with a branch of mathematics called control theory, John Doyle, Jean-Lou Chameau Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering and colleagues have devised a way to better understand the relationship between reduced heart rate variability (HRV) and health.

"A familiar related problem is in driving," Doyle says. "To get to a destination despite varying weather and traffic conditions, any driver—even a robotic one—will change factors such as acceleration, braking, steering, and wipers. If these factors suddenly became frozen and unchangeable while the car was still moving, it would be a nearly certain predictor that a crash was imminent. Similarly, loss of heart rate variability predicts some kind of malfunction or 'crash,' often before there are any other indications," he says. [Caltech Release] [Read the Paper]

Graduate student Matanya B. Horowitz, who works with Professors Joel Burdick and John Doyle, is one of the speakers at TEDxCaltech. He is active in several Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) challenges that seek to develop better control mechanisms for robotic arms, as well as develop humanoid robots that can do human-like tasks in dangerous situations, such as disable bombs or enter nuclear power plants during an emergency. [Caltech News]

The student winners of the 2011 Demetriades - Tsafka - Kokkalis Prizes were announced at a special luncheon with the Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis family. Fiona Chandra received the prize in Biotechnology for her work on glycolytic oscillations with John Doyle. Shelby Hutchens received the prize in Nanotechnology for her work on carbon nanotube foams with Julia Greer. Vivian Ferry recieved the prize in Entrepreneurship for her work on plasmonic photovoltaics with Harry Atwater. William Chueh received the prize in Environmentally Benign Renewable Energy Sources for his work on solar-driven thermochemical fuel production with Sossina Haile. Matthew Faulkner was the recipient of the newest Demetriades - Tsafka – Kokkalis prize in the area of Seismo-Engineering, Prediction, and Protection for his work with Andreas Krause on using accelerometers in cellphones for detecting shaking from earthquakes.

Scientists Discover Importance of Fire in Global Climate Change. Researchers including John Doyle, Caltech's Braun Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems, Electrical Engineering, and Bioengineering, Emeritus, have determined that fire must be accounted for as an integral part of climate change. Their research shows that intentional deforestation fires alone contribute up to one-fifth of the human-caused increase in emissions of carbon dioxide. According to the article, increasing numbers of natural wildfires are influencing climate as well. [Science Magazine article]